About Tim Rollins and K.O.S.

Beginning in 1981, Tim Rollins collaborated with a group of young people he called the “Kids of Survival,” originally comprised of middle school students from the South Bronx school where Rollins was a teacher. Since then, a number of students of various ages have contributed to the work, which is often inspired by literary texts and current events. The group has created paintings, sculptures, prints, and photographs based on texts such as Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, and Franz Kafka’s Amerika. In By Any Means Necessary (After Malcolm X), made in 2008, the composition is dominated by two graphic black X’s painted across a grid of pasted pages taken from the biography of Malcolm X, demonstrating the group’s interest in integrating art, literature, and history.